


Scars

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-20
Updated: 2011-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:16:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for sherlockbbc_fic . Anon prompter wanted Lestrade and John investigate/appreciate each other's scars.</p><p>Warning! Graphic descriptions of violence, frank discussion of child abuse</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

John

The one on his shoulder is the most obvious – the one Greg noticed first.

"Do you want to ask about it?" John had asked, squinting down at it.

"No," Greg murmurs.

"It doesn’t hurt anymore."

"I know."

That one Greg kisses reverently. A symbol of sacrifice.

The thick line on his side from a puncture and a slide is the next one.

"I was three – I barely remember it. I was running and tripped on some steps. My parents were doing DIY and I caught my side on a nail."

Greg laves this one with his tongue.

But the one Greg cherishes, returns to every time the men make love, is the one on the inside of John's thigh.

The limp is psychosomatic, but the injury to the leg is real.

"An suicide bomb," John says when Greg asks about it. "I was lucky."

"An IED had just gone off. We were doing triage, you know." He shifts beside Greg, bringing his hands over his head, staring at the ceiling as if it were playing out the events of that hot August afternoon.

"There were women and children there, too. It was near a school, just at pickup time, and I'd just finished patching up the head. He was thanking me, shaking my hand, and all I could think of was how bloody hot it was, and how much the head looked like my maths master, complete with the mole on the side of his face.

"Which was when a man walked up to the gate and…"

There is silence in the room. Outside, street noises filter in. The sounds of London on a rainy Saturday – car horns and motors and conversation, the slosh of water on the pavement.

"The head's back was to the gate. One minute he was there, and the next minute I was on my back, staring at the bright bowl of the sky with a torso on top of me. I couldn't feel my legs, but in that moment I knew, I knew the only reason I was alive was because the other man had been standing there."

John closes his eyes.

"And so I lived. Was sent home, of course, but came back. Because I lived. Lived to be shot another day."

He grimaces, corners of his eyes crinkling.

"You didn't have to tell me," Greg says, pulling up beside him. Unsure whether to touch, to kiss, to hold or to even keep still.

John opens his eyes and looks at him, pulls his hand to his heart.

"It's fine," John says. "It's… did you know that scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue? That where it grows, it is stronger than typical derma?"

"You sound like Sherlock," Greg says with a smile.

John kisses him. "He's not the only one who know a thing or two about biology."

"So, like a symbol, then?" Greg asks, drawing back. "Not like you to be poetic."

John kisses him again.

"Exactly like a symbol," he replies.

Greg

Greg's oldest scars are around his ankles.

"Football," he says. "You'd be surprised what kind of damage a ten year old can do with a slide tackle."

John laughs and licks his ankle, wrapping his tongue around it. Greg lets his head fall back onto the pillow with a groan.

"And this one." he says, as John settles between his knees, licking and caressing a small white mark on the left one, "is from my bike, the next year. Tried to jump over my cousin's tricycle using a ramp. Lucky I wasn't hurt worse when the bike got caught in the tricycle. Mum was furious with me, though."

John smiles, tracing that one with his hand.

The one on Greg's hip, an angry line that comes from a drunk. It's the one Greg doesn't like to talk about.

It's the one he got when he was still a uniformed officer and answered a call for a domestic disturbance.

The husband and wife had both been drinking – a quarrel had erupted. And of course it had fallen to Greg to find out if there were children in the house.

The husband hadn't taken too well to that and, coming down the stairs, had lunged at him with a knife. Greg had spun away, crashing into the wall, catching the blow on his side instead of in his gut. The husband had overbalanced and fallen, tripping on the stairs. He was dead by the time he hit the bottom.

And then Greg looked up to see the twelve-year-old girl, clutching a doll, standing at the head of the stairs. Greg's knees had given way.

"She looked straight past me," Greg says, leaning up on his elbows, staring at the scar. "Looked straight at her dad. Then she turned to me and asked me,

'Is he dead?'

"I pulled my hand away from my side and saw I was cut. And she asked again,

'Is he dead?'

"God help me, I just said, 'yeah,' I didn't know what the hell was coming out of my mouth. And she said, 'good,' and turned away."

Greg looks up at John.

"He was molesting her," John says quietly.

"Yeah."

Greg knows his face is wet. Knows he's not supposed to be upset by this, not after almost fifteen years on the job. Knows he's seen much worse. Knows that the girl turned out okay – took a first in mathematics. She even has kids now herself – not everyone gets that lucky.

John is by his side, holding him.

"The first time you see something like that," John murmurs in his ear, "it's always the hardest.

"But the scars. Remember what I told you?"

Greg nods. He knows. He remembers.

He wishes he could say the things that John does, know the things that John knows about healing.

He laughs against John's shoulder.

"Seems that psychiatrist knew a thing or two after all," he says.

John's answering chuckle tugs at his heart.

"Maybe she did, at that."

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no money.
> 
> Special thanks to my ~~enablers~~ betae and hand holders annietalbot and bluestocking79
> 
> (and yes, unoriginal title is unoriginal)


End file.
